Nuclear in this millennium is not competing with nuclear or other tech from the 1970s - it’s competing with newer technologies (solar, wind, batteries and gas turbines) which do not require 5 to 10 year huge civil engineering works. All these alternative technologies benefit from mass production in factories. While civil engineering does not get cheaper over time - not just for nuclear plant but all large infrastructure construction.

And that’s just capex - even if a nuclear plant could be built for free, the cost of operation (huge head count, fuel and waste handling), means it cannot compete with newer technologies. Indian Point shutdown years before end-of-life because it was too expensive to operate.

Nuclear plants are large and complex and expensive to build and run. I’m not sure why it should be surprising that electricity generation technology has advanced sine the development of the PWR - it’s been more than half a century. The world has moved on from electricity generation using a huge steam engine attached to an alternator with a fiddly and complex firebox.

It’s economics and newer technologies that have made nuclear power obsolete - not public opinion.